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Reminder: NASA GREEN Seminar April 17, 2008
Reminder: The next GREEN seminar is Thursday, April 17, 2008. Please see below for more information.
FROM: GREEN Team, NASA Ames Research Center
SUBJECT: Monitoring and Modeling the Life Support Systems of Planet Earth
WHERE: Main Auditorium, Bldg. 201, NASA Ames Research Center (Visitor badge required.)
WHEN: 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., 17 April 2008
RSVP: US citizens and Permanent Residents only. If you are a Permanent Resident, please contact Deborah Bazar at deborah.e.bazar@nasa.gov ASAP. If you are a US Citizen please contact Deborah on or before April 15, 2008. Indicate your citizenship status in your email.
NASA employees do not need to RSVP.
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MONITORING AND MODELING THE LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS OF PLANET EARTH
"We are not just passengers on spaceship Earth, we are the crew." (Marshall McLuhan)
In outer space, the astronauts' understanding of life support systems is a matter of survival. More specifically, their lives depend on their comprehensive understanding of every detail of the operations, repair, maintenance, and performance capabilities of the complex systems that provide breathable air, drinkable water, edible food, toxic waste removal, tolerable temperature, and the interaction of all these critical factors. If any of these systems fail, the astronauts' survival may be in jeopardy.
On spaceship Earth, we are only beginning to understand the complexity of the life support systems: what services they provide, how they work, how they are interrelated, and the environmental and economic consequences of altering these systems. Until recently, these Earth life support systems had been largely taken for granted; in the past resources were perceived so vast and robust relative to the small number of people that the impact of human activities seemed insignificant. However, as technology allowed the human population to reach into the billions, human activities are no longer inconsequential. From our current and projected perspectives, we now see that sustaining our Earth life support systems will require an unprecedented level of understanding, which in turn will require a comprehensive program for monitoring and modeling both natural and anthropogenic systems.
This seminar will introduce the concept of Earth life support systems, which are more commonly referred to as ecosystem services. The afternoon will consist of presentations about the information required for the rational management of these systems and assigning economic value and accountability to them. We will focus on the role NASA currently plays regarding the collection and management of environmental data from Earth observing satellites and the use of supercomputers to model current climates and ecosystems. Data visualization techniques, such as the Ames Research Center's NASA World Wind project, will be presented. A panel discussion will further examine critical gaps in our current understanding of Earth life support systems and how future NASA missions might help to fill these gaps.
Speakers include James Boyd (Stanford University), Bill Collins (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley), Steve Hipskind (NASA ARC), Patrick Hogan (NASA ARC), John Hogan (NASA ARC), and Jonathan Trent (NASA ARC).
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